


what is the red monkey?

by reeseo



Category: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!
Genre: Corruption, F/M, Gen, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, bc of foh stuff yk, but i wanted to write about sparx. so. here we are., gibson and otto really arent there that much but i wanted to include them anyways, honestly this is really closer to a weird meta than a fanfic, how the fuck did this become over 2k words, sparx loves his got damn fambly, uhh what else, you try killing the love of ur life and see if it doesnt traumatize you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeseo/pseuds/reeseo
Summary: Sparx considered himself to be a lot of things. A lover, a fighter, a pilot, a brother, and pilot again, because damn if he didn't take pride in that.-On Sparx, and his role within the team.





	what is the red monkey?

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in a two-hour frenzy at like midnight please do not flame x

Sparx considered himself to be a lot of things. A lover, a fighter, a pilot, a brother, and pilot again, because damn if he didnt take pride in that.

Each monkey had a comfortable niche within the hyperforce. Gibson was the scientist, Otto was the mechanic, et cetera. Sparx was happy to call himself the unparalleled best pilot on the team- sure they could all drive just fine, but SPARX wouldn't have gotten lost in an asteroid belt like Gibson did, that one time.

However, despite the well-oiled machine the team could be when in a fight or chasing down a monster, their small little family was just short of dysfunctional when it came to domestic life.

Well, that isn't right. They functioned just fine. Antauri was the older-brother type, shouldering way more than his fair share of the team's emotional burdens. Chiro was the fun boy-leader, learning new things with bright eyes and excitement, Nova being something of a feisty sister to most of them. Not to Sparx, naturally- anyone with two eyes could tell he was madly in love with her- but anyone with two eyes could also tell that that's what she was to everyone else. Gibson was their resident dork, Otto was their clown, and Sparx-?

Sparx didn't really know how he fit in, anymore.

Well. Maybe _he_ was just the dysfunctional one, then.

Early on, he and Antauri had both acted as figures for Chiro to look up to, with Antauri mentoring him in the ways of leading and (most importantly) the power primate, and Sparx acting as the cool one who let him slack on chores and played video games with him. But eventually, as their game sessions had been joined by almost all the rest of the team and Chiro slowly faded out of “boy” and into “leader,” Sparx had lost that important-feeling connection with him. That isn't to say that he and Chiro didn't get along anymore, or something- far from it- but that small connection that came from being the casual, fun-loving brother to the kid had certainly gotten lost somewhere in their story.

Sparx had lost a lot, now that he thought about it.

He guessed that was par for the course for an intergalactic war, but it didn't make it suck any less.

Back in the first few months of their journey, he had not only been alongside Antauri as someone Chiro looked up to, but he thought he and Antauri had- well. He wasn't going to talk about Antauri like he was an _ex_ or something, but sometimes it really did feel like they could've had something very special.

Antauri understood Sparx on a level most of the team didn't. Well, to be fair, most of the team understood him quite well, but Antauri gave him patience and a quirked brow where the rest of the team gave an irritable huff, nine times out of ten.

Sparx had thought he understood Antauri, too. It's not like the whole self-sacrificing stick was unusual with superhero teams, after all.

Antauri was probably the first team member Sparx actually felt connected with.

These days, Nova was by far his main priority and closest teammate, but it didn't mean he cared about the rest of the team any less. It didn't mean he didn't miss the early days, before Mandarin had even betrayed them, where he and Antauri exchanged meaningful looks behind Mandarin’s back and Sparx felt like the two of them were sharing a little secret.

But now, Antauri felt as much of an older brother to him as he did to anyone else.

Sparx wasn't complaining- being able to lean on Antauri generally wasn’t something he would refuse- but it ached a little, when he remembered they'd previously been on something closer to equal footing.

Another thing they'd lost when Antauri had died, he guessed.

Of course, when Antauri had come back and declared Nova third in command, it had stung a little. Sure, Nova had more common sense than the other three of them combined, but Sparx had apparently overestimated how much faith Antauri had in him. Or just underestimated how much faith he had in Nova.

However, it was fun to have another place to belong. The black-eyed trio was the collective fourth in command, and when it was just the three of them, they no longer had to impress anyone. Sparx couldn't say he would _never_ admit to the team how much faith he had in Gibson and Otto- he had actually admitted it several times, if he remembered correctly- but it was less embarrassing when it was just the three of them, somehow.

Despite that, the three of them had once again fell out of step, eventually. It was probably inevitable, especially given Sparxs.... _flighty_ nature. He tended to flit between members a lot, to try to foster connections and hold onto what he had. Sure, call him paranoid and insecure, but it’s hard not to be, given his history.

Sparx wasn't sure when, or how, but at some point along their journey, Gibson and Otto had become.... actual _friends_ . Of course, they'd always been friends, but Gibson had held more contempt for Otto than anyone else on the team, and now here they were, bantering along, with Gibson actually putting up with playful shoves and casual touches and _corrections on his technology_ from Otto. Sparx couldn’t remember a single time Gibson had willingly admitted Otto knew better than him on something. At least, not until now.

Sparx was more intuitive than the team gave him credit for- he prided himself on his ability to read them all like a book (yes, even Antauri) when his fragile ego didn't get in the way. So when Sparx was on the main deck with Gibson and Otto, as the two shared a casual yet painfully intimate moment together, he was suddenly filled head to toe with the feeling of intruding. Sure, Gibson had worriedly called his name when he scurried into his tube with a flimsy excuse, but frankly, Sparx hadn't been listening.

That left... Nova. What was there to say about Nova that hadn't been said a million times before? She was the heart of the team, the fighter, the sensitive one who, despite her comically large fists, had compassion maybe only matched by Otto. _(Even then, though, Otto's big heart could fill up with jealousy in a snap. Remember Captain Proteus?)_

Nova was Sparx’s world.

That wasn't to say he cared about the rest of the team any less, of course. But hey, you try meeting a girl who’s the perfect mix of mean and sweet, who always knows what to say and who you trust with everything, and try _not_ to fall in love with her.

Yeah. Didn't think so.

Sparx considered himself the luckiest guy on Shuggazoom to have a girl like Nova by his side. Despite being someone who more or less wore his emotions on his sleeve, he had a bad habit of coming off as callous and ingenuine when around Nova. Sure, when it comes down to it he can be as honest as he likes, but when your main method of dealing with your insecurities is covering them with jokes or lashing out at people, that honesty can be sort of... overshadowed.

And thus led to the stale status quo of their relationship, broken only by one of them nearly dying.

More often than not, Nova being the one almost lost.

And it being Sparx’s fault.

Sparx couldnt pretend he didnt carry massive amounts of guilt for it. The first time had been in the wormhole, when his dumb slippery hands and Novas dumb slippery boot had got her lost in the disturbing, crackling rainbow void. Sure, she came back, but Sparx couldnt imagine what kind of things she saw while she was lost there, and how scared and alone she must have been. They thought she _died_ . And _it was because of him._

The next time... well, Sparx really didn't like remembering the next time. He was pretty sure the only other time a member of the team had been corrupted so completely like that was way early on, barely a few months after Chiro had joined them, when Gibson had got infected with that crazy virus. To have your body and mind taken over so completely, for something to take advantage of your smallest doubts and to turn them against the people you loved— it didn't happen often. Gibson was probably the only one who could come close to understanding (maybe that virus is part of why he knew there was something fishy about the artifacts in the first place), but for all that Sparx trusted the guy, he couldn't talk to Gibson about this.

He couldn't bring himself to talk to anyone about it, really.

Of course, they tried to coax it out of him— Chiro especially. But Sparx hated everyone treating him like he was some fragile thing, as if they needed to treat him gently. You get traumatized by trying to kill the love of your life against your will _one time_ and suddenly everyone's walking on eggshells around you.

He despised it.

Sure, the status quo was boring, but it made SENSE. He knew nobody on the team hated him, but there was familiarity and routine to the playful banter between him and Nova, to him and Gibson butting heads and Antauri waxing poetic over the ethics of pinball.

The team actually letting him know how much he meant to them was a little too much for his dumb heart to handle. How was he supposed to wallow if they kept fussing like they did? He didn’t want Gibson to wordlessly hand him a pamphlet on PTSD he had probably gotten from Chiro when all he could think about was his shocked cry at being blasted by him, he didn’t want Nova to look at him so fondly when he’d just tried to kill her.

He had tried to _kill_ Nova, and it took a love confession wrenched from her to snap him out of whatever was possessing him long enough for the Hyperforce to purge it from him. He thought he was better than that.

He was at least grateful that Nova never commented on his near-nightly trips to her room, where all he could do was tremble and clutch at her hands. The guilt from trying to kill her was bad enough, but the shame of being such a baby when she's the one who almost died at his hands would be enough to kill him if acknowledged, too.

Sparx loved the team, really. But he couldn't stand being the brunt of all this— this pity.

It was humiliating. He wanted things to go back to how they used to be, before Skeleton King kept coming back, before he touched that stupid fire, before he had to deal with the overwhelming evidence telling him that he was cared about, and that he was just as wanted on this team as Chiro or Antauri.

The team was acting like this because they wanted him to be alright.

The realization hit him like a truck, at the time, leaving him curled up in his bed, furiously trying to suck enough air into his lungs to cope with the fact that it was okay for him to be pitied, but also that it was okay for him to not be ready. That he could take his time and unclench.

That he could fall back into a happy rhythm, despite the impending war.

He wasn't sure where the idea came from, or when the sense of closeness had crept back into his heart. Maybe it was Antauri coming into his room at odd hours, awkwardly asking him things about the sun riders and video games in an effort to connect with Chiro more. Maybe it was an exasperated sigh from Nova, paired with an elbow to the ribs when he made an insufferable flirtatious comment. Otto, climbing onto his back to reach something on a high shelf, or Gibson flushing embarrassedly when Sparx raised a playful eyebrow at him after an incident. Chiro laughing affectionately and shoving him away when Sparx playfully ruffled the kid’s hair.

But as much as things stayed the same, even more things were changing, and not always for the better. bridges had been burned, rebuilt, and burned all over again. Sparx had lost some of the people he cared about most- you can only be betrayed by someone you look up to so many times before you get sick of it.

But...

He figured he could take it, one step at a time. He was used to not feeling in control- again, fourth in command. But as a pilot, he hated feeling lost.

Fortunately, he had his family to help guide him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> for all that we talk about sparx, and his surivors guilt, i really dont think we talk enough about his relationship with.... really anyone besides nova.  
> what started as a single sentence based off of my gibotto headcanons turned into a 2k monster about sparx. go figure.  
> yell at me about the monkeys on tumblr @nbcats


End file.
